Wood finishing forum for professional finishers

Adhesion promoters are a very useful tool to have in your belt as a finisher, as you will see in this very informative video by master finisher and good friend Thomas Craven, of Thomas Craven studios in Van Nuys California.

Back painting glass is what we are doing here, the other uses for this product are where you have to paint rubber or plastic, this product was originally designed for painting plastic bumpers and parts for the automotive industry ( Rubber bumpers on cars, 30 years ago that was a joke). Another use is painting over plastic laminates. I had a customer that bought some very expensive custom cabinet doors from Italy, they were a laminate that had a custom wave C-N-Ced in to the door, the customer made a mistake and got the wrong color, we used the adhesion promoter on these and fixed the color.

Tom is using the CIC mustang adhesion promoter to back paint glass that is going to be used as a black splash, this is a cool little technique and is very popular. It has high tech ultra modern look and is easy to do, getting the paint to stick to the Glass is the tricky part.

An adhesion promoter is in essence a spray on glue that bonds to the glass and then bonds to your paint and thereby promoting adhesion, Simple Right? yes and no.

There are a few key application points that Tom goes over in the video that are very Key, two light (underline) coats. this is not a coating in itself you just want enough to get so stick.

NEXT POINT, you apply your paint while the adhesion promoter is still tackie. don’t let it dry and then paint over it you have defeated the purpose.

The CIC mustang is a great product as it sprays out very light and doesn’t clump or clog, when looking at the glass you wouldn’t know that there was anything other than the color coat, and guess what you can get that product and other fine CIC products on my web site at http://www.annexpaint.com. if you have questions you are welcome to write to me at info@annexpaint.com.

He has 6 short videos in all which are very concise and to the point, clearly covering the points of proper prep and application for doing a professional paint Job.

After proper preparation they applied 4 coats of pinnacle polyprimer from Ellis paint. applied in two applications, sanding in-between coats. This gave him and exceptionally hard finish that was very smooth,

Probably one of the most common mistakes of beginning finishers and professionals alike is applying too much paint too quickly, for the sake of speed they whammer on two heavy coats and walk away only to have it bubble or crack on them later. When the first coat doesn’t have a chance to dry properly and then is covered over by successive coats the later layers will dry quicker and harden, then when the earliest layer finally dries a week or two later it will shrink, the later coats already dry and unable to contract will be pulled together and will crack.

The best practice is sneak up on a high build by successive light to medium coats

The videos are all linked together, there are two introductory videos which go over the project and the prep following that you have two more short videos of the spray applications

After that they applied the polyprimer they applied a flat Clear Conversion Varnish. Conversion varnish is a catalyzed coating which is very hard and durable. CIC coatings is the brand of Conversion varnish being used, I’m very fond of this this particular product as it has been specially formulated to be applied right out of the can with out thinning or retarding, it lays out incredibly smooth and dries quickly.

These products can be obtained through my store Annex Paint in Reseda California If you have any questions about these products feel free to contact me.

Greg Saunders 818-439-9297

If you are interested in having a specialty coating on your furniture contact Thomas Craven at the above web site.

Lately in the los Angeles area there have been a number of new lacquer and pre-catalyzed lacquers hitting the market, some good some not so good, some inexpensive and others not. Being the “Prove-it-to-me” kinda guy that I am, We decided to test them all out and see how they stood up to a few the industry standard tests.

The first thing we did was a spray out of 5 different Pre-Catalyzed lacquers over both a stain and raw wood. How well did they go on? how fast did they dry? How good do they look in the end and most importantly how tough are they,were the questions we wanted to know the answers to.

Inexpensive is good but if the customer calls you in 6 months and you have to go re do the work saving 5 dollars a gallon just cost you two hundred in time and labor not to mention damaged reputation. The place to save it is not on the coating.

Pre-catalyzed lacquers were designed to hold up better in water and wet areas like the kitchen and bathroom. PRe-Catalyzed lacquers are self sealing, but work best with a vinyl sealer. For out little test we didn’t use a sealer, but for a kitchen or bathroom I wouldn’t skimp on that.

We took four other brands and our own brand and tested them all. We videoed the test so that you can see what we did. The CIC Pre-Cat Lacquer turned out to be the best, it isn’t the cheapest but it looked the best and was the toughest, this is the product I sell ( surprise, surprise 🙂 ) . that being said. two of our competitors turned out more favorably than I expected , the other two didn’t do well at all,

All of the panels were sprayed the same. there was no effort to throw the results one way or the other.

It is my effort and propose of the this blog to properly and accurately educate finishers on the subject of finishing.

My self and my fellow sales associate, Martin Gonzales, are train finishers and are more they willing to come out to your shop to demonstrate our products and train your staff on proper techniques for getting the products efficiently and effectively for your customers. feel free to call the store and ask for a demonstration.

I have been remiss with keeping the blog up dated regularly but it has not been for lack exciting things happening in the finishing world. There are several Blog posting on the CIC water based conversion varnish. That product has continued to perform well. If you have been following the Water base conversion varnish postings It has been perfected from the original version. With the success of the product I was persuaded to bring in the other CIC products. Having had the Renner stain system I was not particularly interested in another waterbased system however when I saw the workability of the glaze base I was duly impressed and so conceded to bring the line of water based stains and glazes in to the store.

Unlike the Renner stain and glaze system the CIC Centurion system uses a concentrate dye stain and then a base solution you add the dyes to. As well the Renner system is a 100% zero VOC system where as the CIC system is a little over 200 grams per liter VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds). That being said there is no smell and no fire hazard. The Renner system is a spray only system and the CIC Centurion system is a combination wipe and spray system which is very convenient.

Ok enough of the side chair commentary, the CIC Centurion stain and glaze system is a phenomenal product it is a water base that looks and acts like and oil based stain. There is a stain base and glaze base into which you add the CIC Centurion dye stains to make you colors and shades there are 5 different colorants in the system Yellow, Red, Brown, black and Orange. If you need something beyond that you can add any other Water based colorant you want; Pro-line colorants or professional water base Universal Tint Colorants (better known as UTCs) IF you want to turn it into a spray on stain just add water and spray. Applying the stain once you have mixed it you’ll notice that it acts like an oil based system, It doesn’t streak and or blotch You can squeeze your stain rag out over you work wait a minute and then wipe it out with no consequences heretofore if you did that with a dye stain you would have dark splotch you wouldn’t be able to pull out.

When the CIC rep was pitching me on this system and I was very skeptical, I have on my shelves 4 different stain systems already, including two water based systems that perform reasonably well, one of them being the Renner system which here to fore was the best of the best as far as I was concerned and I really wasn’t interested in having yet another line to deal with. I was talked into a Demo (this is what I do all day long) and boy I was impressed. Noteworthy, is that since I have been on the road demoing this CIC stain system to the local finishers I have sold the materials to every shop I have done the demo with.

In essence this is a stain and glaze system that acts and looks like it’s oil based counterparts. It has little or no order and dries quickly, for a water based product, the biggest drawback to water based systems are that they are temperature and humidity sensitive, meaning that the cooler and damper it is outside the longer your materials are going to take to dry.

Following will be a few short video demos where you can see the product yourself. If you have questions about this material or any other coating system feel free to send me a line.